I just read an article about a schism that has just opened up within a Christian church group or network or something in England (the details of the politics/alliances eludes me), over the issue of the full inclusion of homosexual people within the church, and the rights of homosexual people within society itself. No doubt, this is happening across the world, and as I read the article just now, I got a particular little kick out of it, something along the lines of the excitement of being alive at an interesting time in history.

Watching even a small section of the Christian church split itself up in response to such a social issue is like watching the mechanisms of evolution by natural selection kick into action. It’s like watching a rising sea level separate a species of animal in two. This exact kind of thing is the catalyst of each next stage of evolution! Throughout biological history, this is the start of something that’s going to make a huge difference in the world in future epochs. Things get traced back to this kind of event.

When one species is suddenly cut off from itself into two (or more) groups, and suddenly they can’t mix and interbreed any more, they’re headed in two different directions, and over the course of millions of years the two groups may evolve and mutate in vastly different ways - and probably only one, at best, might end up surviving. Which one? Well, as always, the one that happens to be best suited to survive in the environment in which it finds itself.

Very, very generally speaking, Christianity is a population that has been pretty much united for a very long time on this issue, yet is suddenly finding itself splitting in two. (Relax; I said ‘generally’ with two ‘very’s, remember?) A sea or mountain range has suddenly appeared, and it’s becoming clear that there are now two groups where before there was pretty much only one. They’re going to go in different directions, and there are certain ‘barriers’ to them fully, completely ‘mixing’ henceforth. Chances are, over the course of time, not both of them are going to survive. If one does, which one’s it going to be?

I don’t think that’s a hard question to answer, given that the world is moving, at breakneck speed, towards recognising the full equality of homosexual people, and the principles of full inclusion and equal rights under every aspect of the law come into effect more and more fully month by month- where would you put your money?

Let’s be honest: The secular world has dragged the Christian church kicking and screaming into this debate. Secular ethics is now sculpting the Christian church, and we all get to watch. It’s just too delicious for words.

The social and cultural environment within which an EXclusive mindset that discriminated against homosexual people could thrive and survive is disappearing rapidly. That side of this split is heading off to find that the ‘environment’ that has forever supported it just doesn’t suit it any more. The polarities have shifted suddenly, or the environment suddenly got a lot hotter,… choose your own Darwinian-environmental analogy. The societal values that sustained such an exclusive, negative, and discriminatory view of homosexuality are drying up and disappearing. That side’s going to have a bad time.

The other group, the one that has arisen out of a change in the frequency and effectiveness of certain ideas (those of gay/straight equality, inclusion, equal marriage rights, etc), is heading into an environment in which it will be able to THRIVE; relative to its old-school cousins, at least. The Christianity that welcomes and supports homosexuality is going to have a MUCH easier time getting by. They’re going to have a far better chance of finding a space within the ecosystem into which they can settle and operate. It’s not rocket science, it’s plain old natural selection.

But get this- something else that’s not rocket-science, but kinda mind-blowing when you think of it: After a time, perhaps a decade or two, perhaps as long as a generation or two, when the INclusive side of this schism is the only real survivor, …. we all know what they’re going to credit their side’s survival to, don’t we?: God. God’s guidance, God’s voice, God’s truth. Not the basic mechanisms of natural selection. Not a change in the cultural environment which made it difficult for their less-gay-friendly cousins to survive, and left them at the top of the chain. Not the fact that the frequency and potency of certain introduced memes and values suddenly took hold within their ‘meme pool’ and shaped them to suit the environment into which they found themselves heading… No, no.

Members of the Christian religion in that future time will no doubt look back at how the church seemed to swing towards inclusion of homosexuality, (around the same time as,... hmmmm,... the whole world did), and credit their god with having worked things out such that His true nature in regard to the issue of homosexual equality could finally be expressed in the world. Because that’s what they’ll have then, you see: a full understanding of God’s stance and will on this issue! - and it will be, as it always is, a mirror image of their own stance and will on this issue. The survival and ‘flourishing’ of their version of theology won’t be viewed as having arisen out of the result of an indifferent process of natural selection, catalysed by overwhelming influence from the secular world - no no: it will be said to have been ordained from above. Designed, intelligently. Their version of Christianity will be seen as the very objective that God had had in mind the whole time, and had built His church towards. Just - ahem- sorry about those millennia where God’s true will couldn’t really seem to get past the cultural context it was at constant effect of, and sorry about how the church operated according to the polar opposite of God’s actual will since pretty much forever… It’s just that Christians ‘back in those days’ didn’t have a true understanding of God’s actual values in that area etc etc, you’ve heard it all before.

The result of a natural, understandable, predictable process, catalysed by the secular world, is going to be credited to God as having been intelligently designed and brought about for his very purposes. When you stop and think about it in the light of the fact that this process is getting underway right now, as we speak, it’s just so crystal clear that ‘God’s will’ itself is a byproduct of natural selection at every stage of human history. It matches perfectly the general underlying socio-cultural values of the time and geographical environment that gave rise to it and sculpted it, at every stage. What an amazing coincidence.

There it is, see? ‘God’s true will’ isn’t anything to do with ‘God’. It’s just the result of a natural process acting upon various ‘populations’, and variations within those populations. But how interesting that here, I think we’re seeing, in this particular case and the countless similar ones that are currently playing out before our very eyes all over Christendom: the next step in the evolution of the Christian religion unfolding, sculpted by the overwhelming society-wide secular revolt against the kind of anti-gay values that that the church has so consistently espoused since as far back as the day that their god was credited with the scriptural order to stone gays to death.

So, allow me to get this in, a few generations or decades in advance: Secular ethics can take a bow. The secular world has pushed back against deep-seated scripturally-sactioned religious dogma against homosexuality, leading the church to even need to have the kind of homosexual rights debate they’re currently grappling with, tying themselves in knots, and splitting themselves up over. Let's be clear: The gay rights movement hardly sprang up from within the Christian church, did it? As an orgnization, they didn’t suggest having this debate. They were led to it. And the outcome, which even a blind man can see coming, is going to be called “God’s true will” by future generations of gay-friendly Christian believers. The values that a very very large proportion of the Christian religion are fighting against in today’s world as a gay or progressive ‘agenda’, will be the “God’s true will” of future Christians, thanks entirely to the pushback against traditional Christian values by the secular world. And people ask us why we bother speaking up against Christianity. Well - this is a kind of whole new reason that even I’d never really seen before: because by doing so we actually get to participate in shaping it.

I remember seeing Steve Chalke, back in my believing days in the early 90s. He was pretty cutting edge then too.

Undoubtedly the most memorable sermon was from him. He put a metronome on the pulpit, tick, tick, tick, tick.... and explained that every second that it beeped, a child died in the developing world of a preventable disease.

He said "and none of you give a shit about it."

Then added "and the worst thing is, most of you will be more bothered that I swore, than care about the dying children".

Legend.

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Tim Riches

5/8/2014 02:53:01 am

I just read Chalke's article, "Have we misread the Bible?" - Fascinating. He and Shelby Spong would get along great.

//And people ask us why we bother speaking up against Christianity. Well - this is a kind of whole new reason that even I’d never really seen before: because by doing so we actually get to participate in shaping it.//

I agree, Steve. I feel like anti-theistic efforts have done much to help the water-down believers stand up and walk away from the nonsense, but at the same time there has been an injection of human rights into the equation as the religion collectively evolves. Imagine how Thomas Paine's Age Of Reason must have been a similar catalyst... Great article, and as always, a delight to read.

Cheers!

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spencer

5/10/2014 11:17:54 pm

Please incorporate pictures with each post, it makes me feel better on the inside so I can get the gist without reading this whole giant wall of text. PS. China called, they want it back.

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NSC

5/11/2014 07:05:21 am

Sorry to read that your attention span and literacy are in such a bad condition. I hate to imagine how lost you'd be if you attempted to read a book. (in case you don't know, some books sometimes go longer than 1400 words at a time without any pictures!)
However, if you'd like to go around the internet and choose some creative-commons licensed or public domain images that you think are suitable, and send them to me with attribution links, then I might just go and edit this to include them.

It's interesting to find an analogy with evolution by natural selection, and even more interesting to note that secular ethics are (in part) shaping Christianity. So, I enjoyed your blog post here.

However, I disagree with your prediction about only one of the two camps surviving. The Bible is just too clear about its anti-homosexual message. I mean, come on, the Bible tells us that when we catch homosexuals in the act, we should drag them into the center of a mob and bludgeon them to death! It's not exactly an ambiguous message, is it?

Don't get me wrong, I agree that gay-friendly Christians will probably become a majority. But it won't be, I don't think, an overwhelming majority. Just look at what has happened with evolution. The Bible is just too darn clear about the origin of biological life. God poofed it all into existence, fully-formed out of the box and ready to go. So, despite the overwhelming evidence for evolution, something like half or more of Christians still outright reject evolution, and many Christians in the other half still aren't quite sure what to think.

In order for these camps to really die out (or become extremely marginalized), we would have to see BIBLICAL Christianity die out. What I mean is, Christians would have to start viewing the Bible as a flawed, human book. If that happened, then sure, I could see the gay-friendly Christians eventually becoming the 99% or so majority. But something tells me there will always be plenty of Christians who think the Bible is divinely perfect or close to it, and these Christians are unlikely (at least, in my estimation) to all migrate to the gay-friendly camp.

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Lucas

5/13/2014 10:25:09 am

I think in a lot of ways that Biblical Christianity has been dying out. A LOT of Christians cherry pick their theology from the less objectionable parts of the Judeo-Christian Bible. A lot of Christians' idea of their theology is strictly taken from the four Gospels. If they ever bothered to read the rest of their scriptures they would be appalled at the hatred, cruelty, racism, misogyny, and other forms of injustice required by Yahweh of His People.

As for Evolution when I was a Christian several decades ago I always said that Genesis describes what God did and Evolution describes how he did it. There is a story about this. I just tried to look it up and this is attributed to Galileo but I had heard that it was a cardinal who said the following: "The Bible teaches us how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go." That was my understanding of the Bible when I was a Christian. I think it is a popular view in the Christian community. We always hear about the fundamentalists so they get all of the attention, but most Christians are not fundamentalists.

So, in summary, I think that many Christians are already NOT Biblical. They are perfectly willing to turn their back on most of the Biblical teachings that modern society regards as abominable. All they really have left are the four Gospels. Eventually it will just be a few chapters from the Gospels.

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Erik

10/7/2015 08:40:30 am

Heh heh, he said "poof"ed :-)

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Sonicsuns

5/15/2014 08:52:15 am

A 10% summary, for people who'd rather not read the whole thing:

Christians are split over the issue of homosexuality. Some churches are inclusive, and some are exclusive. It's pretty obvious that the inclusive churches will win out eventually, in terms of how many followers they'll attract.

But after they've won the popularity contest, they probably won't say "We won because we thought very hard about this issue and thus we reached the right conclusion. People like us better because they sense that we're right." Instead, they'll probably attribute their success to the will of God.

Secular criticism has prompted churches to re-examine their views, leading some churches to become more inclusive. But rather than give credit to the secularists, these churches will just give all the credit to their god.

This is somewhat like the view which creationist Christians have about evolution. Rather than crediting natural selection as the origin of species, they simply attribute everything to their god.

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kim

5/27/2014 02:32:15 pm

RE: bible quiz show contradictions? While the presentation of contradictions were funny (ppl who only copy and echo as if brainwashed), I don't really understand how or why you included a reference to our president as part of the satire. I have read the Bible from cover to cover 4 times and done my own research regarding each of the books and other writings that were not included in the official version of the canon. The council of Nicea assembled the canon as we know it today and could not forsee that the books by multiple different authors arranged and assembled by the Roman Empire who robbed and plundered Jerusalem would eventually end up as the official bible in the hands of common people in the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, 1900s, and 21st century via a pinting press. Before the printing press, Common people could not afford copies and depended on their priest for direction and interpretation. At the time the books were assembled only wealthy people could afford a copy of the scriptures as they were handwritten (copied) by scribes. Overall many of the books in the old testament do document actual history (some real events with some details left out or inaccurate due to being handwritten). While I do think extremists of organized religion have used the scriptures to their own advantage, what would you suggest to create an environment that inspires our children to be better stewards of our environment in a loving caring way without being addicts or wanting to start holy wars? Also regarding your views on homosexuality, i think there will always be a small minority that values the safety of monogomous heterosexual relationships. Additionally, other scriptures found in Buddist monasteries such as The Gospel of the Holy 12 seem to be more inspirational, if that is what you are looking for.

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Burger Voss

6/21/2014 06:05:48 pm

Dear NSC,

first of all, thank you very much for all the great and inspiring (and most important, FUNNY) videos that you have made. When I saw Hitler the Atheist, which was my first NSC experience, I felt the rare thrill and excitement that you have when you stumble across a great author you didn't know before, and realize he has been there all along and written a dozen books.

I am a member of the Giordano Bruno Foundation from Germany, and we have regular talks about a great variety of such issues. In Germany, the churches are not only tax excempt, but they are funded by the state with an unbelievable 19 Billion Euros a year. They run a lot of hospitals, but pass the bills on to the state and at the same time bathe in the public aura of doing charitable work. Only they would not allow highly qualified doctors to join their ranks if they are not members of hte respective confession. Only they don't do abortions there, because catholics don't do that.

In fact, in December 2012, a young woman woke up on a bench in a public park in Cologne with abdominal pain and total amnesia. Since she suspected she had been drugged and raped, she went to a doctor, who confirmed her suspicion but admitted that she didn't have the equipment to make a forensic analysis. So she called a hospital to have the young lady examined there. The catholic hospital turned her down, because in the process, an abortion might have to be discussed. The doctor called a second hospital and got the same answer almost verbatim, with the additional remark that a few colleagues had already been sacked for doing it against the hospitals code of conduct. I don't know if they sent the woman a Merry Christmas anyway, but isn't it appalling to see this self-proclaimed 'force of good' in the world in action? They didn't even let her in! That is what we are fighting against here in Germany.

Long story short, this article of yours is truly to the point, and it shows the shameless opportunism that has enabled the churches to live and thrive to this day. This adaptive technique must be exposed at every chance, because a lot of people still seem to mistake the churches for authorities on anything. Have you thought about turning this into a video? Something like 'The catholic church of 2114' or something? Could include a few jokes on social progress that will have happened until then, like human rights for all primates (our next big issue at the GBF, called the Great Ape Project) or similar.

Of course I wouldn't ever want to urge you into doing this, but you know, if you read a good book (not THE good book, of course), you sometimes wonder what your favorite film director would make out of it.

And BTW, if I may ask, what is your educational background? You seem highly literate on theological issues. I am a scientist, and actually reading the Bible always stands in my way of reading books that are worth it and higher up my list.

Thanks again for all you are doing for this cause!

Take care,

Burger

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NSC

6/21/2014 10:59:50 pm

Thanks Burger,
To answer your question, I'm a teacher with masters-level qualifications. Nothing in religion or theology or anything like that though. I grew up with Christianity, very mainstream middle-of-the-road style, and read as much Christian theology as I could get my hands on as a teenager. It seems that it just stuck.
Cheers

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NonStampCollector

Youtube antitheistic video maker. See "info" section above for more of who I am.This blog is a place for me to write or present things that are too long for twitter, and not of a 'video' nature.Follow me on twitter (above) or sub to the RSS feed (below) to be notified of when I've put something up.Thanks for taking a look, feedback welcome.NSC.

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